Savin' Me: Special Romano x Stranger
by Andovia212
Summary: This is completely parodied off of the original music video for Nickelback's song. There IS going to be a second chapter (it was requested), but it is not complete yet. I own neither Hetalia nor the song!


"I'm going to the store, d***it. What do you want, Antonio?" Lovino snaps at his older brother as he answers his cell phone.

"You didn't stay to get the rest of the-" he began, but Lovino didn't hear the end of his sentence as he was jerked backwards by the hood of his jacket just as a truck went speeding through the red light. Lovino stared, shocked. He had been one step in the road already. If that person hadn't pulled him out of the way, he'd be dead right now. He twirls around to look for his savior, to give them a thank you that was so very rare for him to say. What he sees, shocks him more. He looks more. Are they real? What ARE they?

"What the h***-?" he mutters to himself. He looks more at the people passing by him on the busy street corner. He looks at the ones across the street too. They all have them. They're all different though. He grabs the arm of the woman that had just passed him. She was pretty, but he didn't bother acting like he usually tended to around women.

"Mi scusi, ma che cos'è? [Excuse me, but what is that?]" he asks, gesturing to the numbers hovering above her head. She gives him a look that says "Are you drunk?" then pulls her arm free and walks on. Lovino does the same to the person coming up to pass by him. He sweeps his arm over the man's head, but his hand simply goes right through them. The man gives him the same look as the woman and jerks free harder than she. Lovino just stares at them all around him. He tries once more, but this woman just pulls straight free and continues on. He begins walking toward the market again, occasionally holding people up. If he could just feel them, he'd feel so much better, but he goes right through them. Obviously nobody else could see them.

"What's going on?" he keeps asking himself silently. He reaches the park that's about a quarter ways to the market and simply can't take it. He detours over to a bench, sits down, and digs his palms against his eyes.

"What the f*** is happening?" he asks aloud. He hangs his head down in his hands for a moment, then looks up again as a brunette sits on the opposite side of the bench. He tries to focus on her face, but the numbers are too distracting. He looks down, then looks at them again. They read 21.245 for sure but the last two sets of digits are going down too quickly She's talking in rapid Italian on her cell phone. "Maybe she won't notice if I try to touch them?" he wonders. She glances at him quickly but looks down as she catches him looking. He slowly reaches for the numbers and is almost there when she glances at him again, then backs away at the closeness of him. She stands up looking disgusted then walks away. Lovino just goes back to looking. He looks at all of the numbers. They're counting down. All of them. Some have so many more digits than others.

As he watches on more man pass, he gets up and starts walking again, being to antsy to sit still and figure things out. He stops more people as he walks. As he fails once again, the irritation starts to come. "Why is this happening?!" he yells at himself, once again in his mind. Then complete unease, strong enough to where he simply takes off running in the wrong direction. He focuses on only running for a minute, passing many staring people, including some workers who were lifting an iron statue with a crane. They were all on break but sitting around the base of the crane. He gets to another intersection and isn't allowed to walk. He stares more at the numbers of the other people waiting to cross. They stood out, bright orange against the cloudy day. The light doesn't change, so he goes the other way and runs until he needs to rest. He leans against the front wall of an apartment building, right next to the entrance. As he catches his breath, he notices an ambulance on the street.

The two EMT's get out, get the back doors open, stretcher out, and in the building within a minute. They are back out within another with an elderly woman strapped down to the stretcher. She appears perfectly fine except that she had a dead stare at nothing. He looks at the number above her head. 11.01 at the exact moment he looks. They continue counting down, just like everyone else's. He looses sight for a moment as they load her into the vehicle. He steps to the side to look. 6.05. He watches as the numbers continue down rapidly, reach 0.00, and vanish. He gets a sudden thought then looks at her chest and stomach. They were not moving. She wasn't moving in the slightest. He had just witnessed a woman die. The ambulance finishes loading her up, throws their lights on, then rockets off for the hospital. Lovino can feel that they'll be too late, no matter how hard they try.

He sets off walking again, passing the same bench he'd sat on earlier. He pauses though and does a double-take. The woman there has the numbers above her head, but there was a second set of numbers hovering above her belly, which Lovino then notices is swelled slightly. The baby had forty-two years, two hundred sixty five days, and a counting number of seconds of its life left, and it wasn't even born yet. The woman notices him behind her and looking at her baby bump so she smiles at him. He nods once in greeting, then goes on.

He gets a little farther then notices something. He gets closer to check. He stares at his reflection. There are no numbers above his head. He waves his hand over his head once, but there's still nothing. He can only see his own confused face and the background behind him.

He walks again, following the same routine. Look at all the numbers and read the ones he can. He's about ten feet away from where the crane workers are getting back to work when he sees her. A young woman about 20 with brown hair, pale-ish skin, and wearing a yellow sundress. Though he registered these details, he was staring at the numbers. They were far too low for such a young and healthy looking woman. She's going to her car that is parked on the street.

As she begins to bend down to unlock the door, she's down to three seconds, and Lovino realizes what's about to happen with a swift glance upward. The crane breaks. He dives forward, clings to her arm, and pulls her away just as her time is about to hit zero and the statue smashes down on her car. The place she would've been had he not been there. Lovino curls himself around her as glass and shrapnel fly away from the destroyed car.

As the statue settles after a few seconds, he allows her to stand properly. She steps forward, seeming as shocked as he had been earlier that day. She stares at her car for a moment, then looks up to find her savior. Lovino had started walking away once he knew she was safe. He glances at a few people. He could no longer see the numbers. He's about ten steps away from her when he realizes his phone is ringing. He looks at it to see that there were forty-two missed calls. He answers his brother, not quite so mad at him anymore.

"Antonio?"

"Lovi, you're okay! You had me worried sick! I thought when you hung up that you were mad at me like usual, but then you didn't answer when you called back! That was fine for the first five calls, but-"

"Antonio, I've had a crazy as f*** day. Mi dispiace that I didn't answer, but I was- out of sorts."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll explain when I get home. I still haven't been to the store yet."

*** Stranger's P.O.V ***  
>I stare at my crushed car. I honestly don't care that it's obliterated, but there is one thought coursing through my mind.<p>

"That was almost me."

I stay in my shock for a moment then look around for the guy that had saved me. He'd been curled around me to protect me, so I hadn't been able to see his face. It all happened so fast.

My eyes widen as I look at the people around me. Everybody has numbers floating above their heads.


End file.
